Joe Lewis's overwhelming yacht has departed. Now his underwhelming offer for Mitchells & Butlers has too. It was dropped this morning amid much muttering about deteriorating economic conditions and market volatility.

Has M&B's world changed so much since Piedmont, Lewis's investment vehicle, said a month ago that it might be minded to offer 230p a share? Has the fundamental value of one of Britain's largest pub chains really shifted so radically?

Well, the company's last trading update didn't provide much cheer, as Piedmont pointed out at the time. Nor have recent updates from high street neighbours. At a push, one might also say that falling long-term bond yields aren't good news for M&B's pension fund or for its interest-rate swaps.

But did those factors add up to a bid-breaker? Surely most would have been anticipated as risks at the time of the approach.

The other risk, of course, was that Elpida – the Irish contingent led by JP McManus and John Magnier – could have declined 230p. Elpida and its co-travellers own 24% of M&B so they were in the position of the king-makers (given that Piedmont has 23%). Did McManus and Magnier indicate that a thumbs-down was likely?

One suspects they never declared their hand, even informally. But maybe that just made Lewis feel more aggrieved. He never came to terms with the outside world's expectation that takeover bids require takeover premiums.

Still, there's every chance that the drama will run again at some point. The current position can't be sustained indefinitely – M&B has an interim chairman, an interim chief executive, an unhappy large shareholder (Piedmont), an inscrutable large shareholder (Elpida) and five years of boardroom upheaval on the clock. Something has to give.

From Lewis's point of view, he may have gained a long-term tactical advantage. He's demonstrated that he's not desperate to own M&B at any price. And he's learned that 230p, regarded as an insult on day one, wasn't being derided so confidently a few weeks later. One suspects that 250p-260p would have found more than a few takers. Call that useful intelligence for another day.